Football, football and even more football! (Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby)

Member Name: julietta

Product:	Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
Date:	11/09/01 (293 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic writing, Evident passion, Hornby's best work!

Disadvantages: Football, Football, Football

I could have labelled this opinion 'How I lost my heart to a football fan on two different occasions' - but clearly I would be digressing!

However, I'll let you into a couple of my little secrets - number 1: I generally hate football (sorry folks!) and number 2: I only read this book the first time because I was going out with a Spurs fan who blabbed on about the said sport all the time. Sad but true. On a positive note, the relationship lasted only a little longer than the book which is already a quick read - so, no harm done in the long term. Yes, I recovered.

This said, the book provides an ideal platform to get into a football fan's actual psyche. The average British/English football fan is stereotyped as male, mid-twenties to mid-thirties, loves guzzling ale and would prefer to spend his Saturdays watching men running round a pitch in the British weather, i.e. the pouring rain. 'Tis true. The same man would prefer to do this even if his team loses each match every season (which is strangely normally the case - there are no winners in football) or even if temperatures match their Siberian equivalent - 'tis still true.

In this case, the fact that Hornby chooses to write a whole book on the beauties of football can make it a fascinating read for anyone.

Fever Pitch is basically a tribute to both the history and hysteria caused by English football. Hornby (as a real-life Arsenal fan) has a unique talent here in weaving a story out of autobiographical moments with a slight narrative where the glory and obsessive nature of football is eeked out on every page. Within this you can quickly deduce that the thing always and forever on a football fan's mind is HIS fixture list (sorry to masculine-ise it but it's true - HER'S are more logical!) and everything else (friends, family, love and moments) is second best. Each year, each month, each season of the narrator's life can be calculated and d
escribed by footballing moments - such is the craze, the frenzy, and the desperation for his team and the beautiful game.

For those who may feel too 'footballed-out' by this review -you can always try the film version. This little ditty, starring the wonderful Colin Firth, is a far more sensitive football-account than the book. Firth plays a football-crazed yet vulnerable man who even seems troubled by his obsession. The film also mingles in an aspect of love (something that is not heavily referenced in the book) and loss where a girlfriend becomes an outsider on match day - thus appealing to women probably the world over who ultimately always stand on the periphery of the game.

I would recommend the book to anybody. Although completely devoted to football it's still a great account and shows some great (autobiographical) work by Hornby. He did the same for music in High Fidelity - read that one as well rather than see the film.

As for his later and more recent fiction - About A Boy and How To Be Good – I personally don't think Hornby has been able to keep the spontaneity of his earlier writing. His passion as a writer counts for a lot and his work in Fever Pitch displays this more than anything.

Happy reading!

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